Borrowing Books
by Blondiebonks
Summary: Giselle was no book theif, but Paul Lahote seemed to think otherwise. Giselle borrowed books, she always returned them, but when Paul steps in to the line of fire to take a blow for Giselle, everything changes. Indebted to him, Giselle's life will be flipped upon it's head.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The boy was older than me, but only perhaps by a few years. His eyes were dark, and wide as he looked down on me. It would be the basis for are relationship that had yet to come. He was always looking down on me, for his height seemed to span miles in comparison to my own stubby legs. Even as I grew taller I remained always looking up.

I curled my lip back at him the words ready to run from my tongue as the rain pattered harmoniously around us.

It was always raining here.

"What's your name?". It was a simple enough question, but not one I would answer.

"You read books?" he smirked still looking down on me.

"Va the fairest mettre!" I cursed him with my tongue a sword slashing at his bravado with a certain air of grace.

The boy smirked still holding out the soaked pages of the book in his hands. The words would be smudged beyond repair I knew that instantly, that was why I'd left it to sit in the murky puddle water. The water that soaked through my shoes and stained my socks.

"You read?" He questioned again this time his voice becoming sterner.

I tried to place his face amongst the hundreds I'd brushed past, bumbled along with down corridors or fleeted past in the supermarket but yet somehow, I couldn't name him. He was a blank. Blanc.

Someone called his name. It was a voice almost as deep as his, and in the small carpark, as truck doors slammed and people ran squealing in the rain he continued to look down at me, holding my book. The book I had taken.

I didn't steal books.

I borrowed them.

I always returned them, I was after all no scoundrel.

At that moment I wanted nothing more than to break his stare. For I was after all only a girl, and he was almost a man. I knew my Mother watched from the car and the sound of her horn and raft would soon be upon me. But yet I could not.

So I did what I knew. I scorned the oaf.

"On t'a bercé trop prés du mur!" I screeched with a defiant glare. And as quickly as I could, I stamped on his foot and swung my rucksack at him.

"You scélérat, you dirty scélérat!" I added with another angry swing.

The boy smirked down at me still. His lips were not disproportionate to the rest of his face, in fact they were quite right. It made me swing for him again.

Thud, went the rucksack as stationary, a water bottle, a apple and hardback collided into the unwavering chest of the scoundrel, the absolute scélérat! The rain fell heavier now, like pellets around us. The carpark was empty. Bar the idling car. Myself and the scoundrel who stood in the murky water and his equally tall peers who loitered behind us, none brave enough to approach. It was almost musical, the thud, the pellet, the jeer and the horn of the car.

My mother beeped three times.

The first was to get my attention. I paused mid swing and looked back.

The second was when I waved my hand hushing her as I moved to snatch back the ruined words but he leered back from me.

The third was when I spat at his feet and called him a filthy vouler.

His smirk was gone then and he reached for me, anger absorbing his dark eyes. But I was gone.

My feet splashed in the puddles across the carpark as I sprinted aided with trepidation towards the waiting car.

Climbing up to the cab I could smell the overpowering stretch of football boots. The kind that littered the back seat.

"Where have you been, girl?" Demanded my Mother clipping my ear as I dropped my rucksack into the footwell. "And you will stay clear of that filth do you hear me! Paul Lahote is nothing but a …" she didn't finish her sentence.

Her hand pelted the horn and the screeched the abscourites and foul words I had so equitetly displayed only minutes earlier. However these were directed at a cat in the road rather than a filthy vouler like Paul Lahote.

Paul Lahote.

I would do well to memories the name.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

I clutched the phone and three rings in the soft voice of Seth chirped through. I had met Seth quite accidentally.

He'd caught me taking my first book.

This one was from the library, taken without a library card.

I still hadn't gotten around to getting that library card. Which was my inevitable downfall. For as I snuck around the musty library Paul Lahote was watching me. He saw me take another book.

"Seth" I gushed as I pressed my back against the doorframe. I could hear Leah barking in the background and my heart ached a little for them both.

"What's up?" He asked, his attention obviously focused on whatever his sister was talking to him about.

"It … Paul Lahote. He followed me Seth. I, we got into an argument …" I rushed as the line began to crackle.

Unable to keep myself in one place I moved to the window sash and began twitching the curtain out of habit.

"So?" He questioned a little uneasy. "Paul Lahote's just a guy with some anger issues. Just keep away from him and your be fine" Seth tried to assure.

I grasped the curtain a little harder.

"Seth, this is Paul Lahote. I may not have been around here for long, but I know enough to be worried" I worried feeling the texture of the heavily floral print between my palms.

"He knows bad people. Very, very bad people" I stressed.

Paul Lahote was coming to be associated with Sam Uley, and Jared Cameron. Both of whom had a reputation was that suspect and filled me dread.

"Look Giselle. Paul Lahote has no reason to be interested in you. What would he care about some book thief for" he teased and I inhaled sharply.

"I don't steal" I corrected.

"Look I've got to go …" Seth's tone changed and Leah's voice was growing in the background until I could hear her angered words. The phone was cut off before I could bid him goodnight.

I always felt La Push had it's own distinct smell. I had tried once to explain it to my Mother but she had brushed me off. I mentioned it to my brothers who laughed and told me to go back to my books. I did not appreciate either reaction.

My Papa however, now he was a man who held an appreciate on for words. Now, as I sat up in the library he listened to me describe the smell of La Push and he smiled.

La Push smelt in the mornings always of rain. For the cloud bank always settled itself low, and as the day drew out the clouds would surely always turn greyer, speckled with perhaps a pale blue. Sometimes they were the colour of the water here. Even that was murky, cold, lifeless. When I stepped outside I could smell the rain, it stuck to everything, to my skin, my clothes, my hair. Then there was the smell of pines. It stuck on resolute even when the smell of football boots could be covered with some freshener. The pines were like the rain. Endless.

I curled my feet under myself as I rested against the window seat in the small library. My Papa sat at the desk, it was handmade, from local wood, sourced when we had first moved to this condemned place. It was all bleak here.

Even this house.

Papa was writing a sermon. One he would read out on Sunday. We went to church every Sunday as a family.

My Papa, he went everyday. My brothers twice a week. My Mother only Sundays. Me, I went when required but that was all.

Still the chain hung down like a warning to all those who may dare try and cross me. I would hold it sometimes finger it. It was interact and gifted to me a long time ago. A time of happier memories. The silver of the chair was cool as it ran between small silver beads with formed together at the St Christoper, the chain broke of again underneath the small oval to hang a miniature cross which sat between my breasts. A constant reminder.

"Giselle!" My brother called. I couldn't identify which, they all blurred into one now. Having all reached puberty, with voice deep and broken, growing muscles and gangly limbs I didn't try very much now to disassociate the boys from one another. They were simply my brothers, frères I decide

I remained stubbornly in place on the window seat unwilling to move even for the sound of my own name.

Afterall it was a Friday evening. I had no where I would rather be.

It was always warm in the library. Whenever I was reading, as I was now, my Father would come in and light a fire. He'd tend it carefully as I sat up in my favourite spot, bring words to life with my imagination.

An amazing thing, printed words.

I could hibernate during the winter in here, safe from the darkness and harsh landscape of outside, something I viewed only through the rounded window.

I caught my Fathers eye and he raised one of those blonde eyebrows in question. His fountain pen was clasped in his left hand and he paused mid way through the draft sermon that would be read so easily from his soft lips upon Sunday.

Fingering the leather of the bookmark I reluctantly set in in between the pages and closed the hardback, shutting off the better world for a moment.

'Giselle Durand' my Mother shrieked and only a moment later her fists rasped agaisnt the door of the library.

She hated books. Never set foot in the place. Not with her perfectly groomed hair, all curled into a tight bob, or her immaculate makeup which drew out her lips and flattered her pebble eyes. Her clothes were always crisp and smelt of baking but never did I see a spec of flour caught between her manicured nails. My Mother was in my eyes, the empitomy of beauty.

The room was filled with a monetary silence as my Father looked at me expectantly and I considered my disembarkment from the soft window seat. It was all of great frustration.

'Coming' I hurried to assure while muttering another French curse.

My Papa looked on with only disaprovement as I padded across the solid wood floor which made me recoil a little with every cold step.

I reached for the carved handle and pulled back the door a slither. Enough for me to slip through but not of her to enter. She didnt deserve to look upon the power of the room, for she could not appreicate it.

'There's a boy !' She quipped smacking at me as I slouched agaisnt the door frame. Even now, in her nightclothes she looked like a vision.

'A boy !' Papa questioned from behind the door and I warned my Mother with sharp eyes. She took my hand in hers and was pulling me towards the doorway, which meant trailing through the narrow corridor and through a complex pathway of doors and turns before we reached the large door that marked both entrance and exit to this place.

'Giselle' My Mother began but I wouldnt meet her gaze, a dusty pink blush had flushed across both my pale cheeks.

My Mother sighed her usual, exasperated sigh, I allowed her to faff for a few seconds with me. She pulled up my shirt to hide my lingere strap, she adjusted my fringe and pulled my glasses from my face. She looked disapprovingly down at my bare feet and was muttering about makeup, or lack of by the time I had built myself up to opening the door.

It was raining still. But this rain was coming with a storm. Thunder rumbled as I twisted the handle and jerked the door back with a nervous judder. My hands shook and I gnawed down on my lip upon seeing the visitor.

'Scélérat, you dirty scélérat!' I scolded with curled lip and wildness in my eyes.

"Giselle!" My Mothers gasped sezing my shoulder.

"Don't worry Mrs. Durand" Paul assured brushing away my words with a smirk and a wink that had her smiling at the handsome young man.

"You mind your manners Giselle!" She quipped smacking me on the back of the head and I rubbed it subconsciously.

Paul's eyes I realised hadn't left my face and I stared towards him.

"I brought back your book" he remarked and I looked for it in his hands but it wasn't there.

"Come" I beckoned him as the lightning bolt reached out across the sky. The boy walked in with me and I closed the door bracing myself agaisnt it.

I appraised him with my eyes for a moment. He was … handsome. Annoyingly so. His face was hard and full of lines. He had striking features, piercing eyes and dark spiked hair. His clothes were damp from the rain and he seemed hardly dressed at all in his shirt and shorts.

He drew a hand behind his waist and pulled the book out from the waistband of his shorts which made me scowl.

"It's not my book" I answered at last.

"I'll be going then?" He teased stepping towards me.

"No!" I cried snatching the book from him, but his hold was firm and are fingers brushed as we both fought for power over the material.

I inhaled a sharp, piercing breath and he looked at me for a long moment.

"I dried it out. You can't read all of the chapters. But perhaps you've already read it?" He questioned and I did not answer.

I pulled firmly once more and his hands released. I nursed the book clutching it to my chest.

"You … why did you bring it back, to me?" I questioned stunned.

"I figured, if you stole it, you stole it for a reason" he laughed.

"I didn't steal it!" I snapped.

He winked at me then.

My mouth opened and closed almost on its own accord. I could hear the wind howling outside, but focused instead on his lack of waterladen clothes. Paul Lahote was now praticly dry. I reached for my cross and rubbed my thumb over it.

Bad omens.

Filthy scélérat.

We stood for a moment longer in the hallway. With my Mother concealed in the shadows of the staircase, my brothers listening from the top of the stairs and only the ragged breath of myself filling the space.

"Goodbye scélérat!" I announced stepping back from the door with an elegance that would make my Mother proud and throwing back the wood to let the storm blow in.

He looked at me then, or more, he looked right through me. Into my soul.

"Goodnight Giselle" he acknowledged stepping forwards so we were side by side and I could see the perfect smirk that dimpled the one side of his face. "Night Mrs. Durand, boys!" He called in a loud voice that forced me to grasp the handle.

My Mother gasped and jumped from her place of hiding and my brothers snickered from the landing.

He smiled then, a genuine, toothy smile. Which revealed perfectly straight teeth, white and piercing.

I shoved at his arm hurrying him through the door well and slammed it firmly hopping it hit him on the way out.

"Dirty little scélérat!" I roared. "And you!" I screeched further pounding up the stairs towards my siblings and beating them on the arms with the book as they scampered away like rabbits.

When I'd finished I took a deep, calming breath and turned to face my Mother who was still blushing from the scélérat.

I glared at her.

"He's a scélérat!" I denounced but she giggled.

"I feel, perhaps, I was a mistaken Giselle" she smiled a lingering smile.

"But the rest of them. The rest are still dirty little toe-rags that no daughter of mine will dare to mingle with!" She forewarned. I looked ahead at the wall grimly.

"And I think he may be sweet on you" she chimed in and I stared at her then trying to weigh up whether she was lying. But my Mother was a woman of her word, and she had no time to idle about for a response.

She glided along the landing fishing up dirty uniform and and drawing blinds.

I however stood thinking about my scélérat.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

 **JellyLove01 thanks for following the story!**

 **Clarinetgoddess62 thanks for following the story!**

 **mrnoodles125 thanks for following the story.**

 **Crystals and Rainbows thanks for following the story.**

 **Elvira-baba thanks for following the story.**

 **wolf-girl-only-in-my-dreams thanks for the review, I hope you enjoyed the update, and for following the story.**


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